


everyone was a little bit in love with harry

by jellyfishes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Genderswap, Major character death - Freeform, girl!Harry, girl!Niall, girl!Zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:50:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishes/pseuds/jellyfishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall wanted to take Harry and wreck her, used to throw her around on the floor and wrestle her until she was pinned beneath Niall’s lanky body, laughing so that her dimples danced on her cheeks. Zayn didn’t really have the upper body strength to pin Harry to the floor, but she used to dig her fingers into Harry’s sides to make her laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everyone was a little bit in love with harry

It’s a warm night when Niall kisses Zayn for the first time. The kind of night where the sky looks almost purple and the stars are a bit dull and faded. Zayn is sitting outside when Niall climbs onto her lap and snuggles into her. It’s weird because Niall isn’t a cuddly person. She’s all hard edges and baggy vests that she wears to pretend she doesn’t really care about anything. Zayn’s only ever seen her cuddle with Harry and even then, it’s usually her who wrapped an arm around Harry’s small shoulders and pulled her in close. So, it’s weird that Niall is the one seeking comfort, but it’s nice. 

They don’t really say anything for a while, Zayn just lets her hand come up to rest against Niall’s cheek, her thumb brushing against her cheekbones. Niall hasn’t got cheekbones like Zayn, but they’re still nice and she leans into the contact of Zayn’s fingers caressing her skin. And then she turns her head and brushes her lips against Zayn’s. It’s unexpected and Zayn is startled by the feeling of Niall’s strong fingers in her hair. Zayn is shocked and she’s not surprised easily, and sure, Niall’s been more quiet than usual recently, but that’s all to do with Harry and the way her car crashed into a tree and knocked her out of the world.

Niall’s lips are desperate against Zayn’s and she thinks it’s probably the hard, haggard press of grief against her mouth, like somehow the bruising kisses Niall is pressing onto Zayn will bring Harry back into the world, the girl everyone loved. Because everyone was a little bit in love with Harry. Yeah, Zayn loved her, like a whole fucking lot, but Harry loved Niall so much it happened to kill her.

“I miss her,” Niall whispers against Zayn’s lips and oh, that’s what this is about.

“I miss her too.”

\---

Zayn was fourteen when she realised she liked soft lips. She was at a party and there was a game of spin the bottle and she realised she was trying to spin the bottle so that it landed on one of her best friends, Sophie. And that was weird at first, the way Zayn crossed her fingers as the bottle spun across the floor.

Danny had laughed when it landed on him instead and leant in to kiss her and his hands felt too big when they spanned across her back.

“You’re sexy,” he’d said when he pulled away and she’d giggled because it sounded wrong coming from a guy who hadn’t even finished with puberty yet and probably only liked her because she had bigger tits than most of the girls in the class.

“Thanks,” Zayn said before pushing him back to his side of the circle and hugging her knees up to her chest. She figured she was too young to make up her mind about whether she liked girls or guys more, so she just sunk back against the wall and waited to figure it out.

\---

Zayn is at Harry and Louis’ to visit to Louis, but he’s nowhere and she can only hear the sound of vicious wailing coming from the second floor. Louis doesn’t wail, so she figures it’s Niall and she finds her curled up in the middle of Harry’s bed holding onto one of the stupid ironic sweaters the owns. There’s these awful dry, scratchy sobbing noises coming from Niall’s throat and Zayn doesn’t blame her because they’ve all done a lot of crying over the past three weeks.

“Ni,” she says gently, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. Niall stops sobbing for a moment, but doesn’t look up from where she’s buried her face into the soft orange fabric of Harry’s jumper, but Zayn climbs onto the bed opposite Niall, grabs the sleeve of the jumped and runs her fingers over the wool. There’s a piece of wool that’s come free of the rest and Zayn digs her nail under it, pulls so that it unravels a bit more and feels her throat get stuck when the smell and feel of _Harry_ slowly settles over her from being in her room for so long.

Zayn used to get the same feeling when Harry was alive, but it was more exhilarating then, like one day it could be hers to share with Harry even though everyone knew Niall and Harry were too in love for that to ever happen. Still, Harry always managed to make everyone feel as though they had a chance with her. It was all a part of her charm.

Niall reaches across the bed and takes Zayn’s hand in hers, twists their fingers together until she’s holding so tight it’s almost painful and Zayn tries not to care, tries to squeeze back just as hard because maybe it’s what Niall needs, for someone to be rough with her, to push her and to hold her harder than she can hold them. Harry was always meeting Niall step for step and Zayn thinks Niall needs someone to do the same thing now.

“Do you need,” Zayn licks her lips, “someone to kiss you?”

Niall looks at her and nods, reaching for her with grabby hands. “Be her,” she croaks out and Zayn nods. “We can both be her for each other.”

“Oh,” Zayn says as Niall’s lips meet hers because she didn’t think Niall would offer something like that.

“You never got to have her,” Niall says and for the first time, Zayn wishes that it were completely true.

\---

Niall is the kind of girl who never wears a bra. It means that when they were just starting out on the X Factor and getting used to sharing a room together, Zayn could see her nipples through the baggy t shirts she wore. It didn’t bother her, but she noticed that Harry could see it too, and that bothered her a little bit.

Harry used to curl up next to Niall and push a big pile of curls behind her ear and steal one of Niall’s snapbacks with a laugh and a scuffle, but Niall always let her take it in the end. Because Harry was easy to say yes to and impossible to say no to, at least, for Zayn at least. Usually it looked like Louis and Liam felt the same way and Zayn used to think they got a bit overwhelmed by how _everywhere at once_ Harry was. She sometimes thought she caught Liam staring at Harry like he wanted to wrap her up and not let the world hurt her, but that’s just Liam – he likes to protect people.

Niall was always the opposite. She wanted to take Harry and wreck her, used to throw her around on the floor and wrestle her until she was pinned beneath Niall’s lanky body, laughing so that her dimples danced on her cheeks. Zayn didn’t really have the upper body strength to pin Harry to the floor, but she used to dig her fingers into Harry’s sides to make her laugh. But Harry still used to gravitate towards Niall more than she did towards Zayn.

It had probably been something to do with the fact that Niall’s loud and out there, her boyish charm makes her the fun one in the band. People are drawn to the huge sphere of energy that Niall seems to revolve in. Just like Harry, there’s something that lures them in and makes them want to be friends with her. No one really wants to be friends with Zayn, she has to look after herself. And she’s not that good at making friends, so it’s hard sometimes.

Zayn doesn’t even know what it was about Harry. She didn’t ever dress up or try to make herself look girly. She always wore jeans or shorts that were almost too bright for your eyes. She dyed the ends of her hair ridiculous colours that seemed to change every few weeks just like her mood. She wore stupid leather shoes without socks and Zayn wished she could kiss her painted lips onto Harry’s collarbones that jutted out above her baggy t shirts.

Whatever it was, Niall saw it too. The only difference was, Harry saw it back in Niall.

\---

Zayn thinks it’s meant to be a kissing thing, like Niall will just close her eyes and press their lips together and for a little while she can pretend that Zayn is Harry and her lips aren’t quite as fully but Niall doesn’t seem to care that much. She doesn’t think it’s ever going to progress beyond that, the kissing thing and she’s totally fine with that, doesn’t really expect it to, to be honest.

So when Niall presses her up against the wall in her apartment and slides a knee between her legs, Zayn gasps and lets her legs fall apart, hands coming up to clutch at Niall’s shoulders. She whines in the back of her throat and when Niall pulls away, she raises an eyebrow at her because _what the fuck_.

“Fuck me,” Niall murmurs against her lips. “I need to – I miss her so much Zayn. Make me forget she’s not here.”

Zayn nods even though she hasn’t ever done this before, but she figures that if Niall wants her to pretend to be Harry she can put it down to not knowing what Niall likes and the blonde might be able to forgive her slightly unpractised technique.

“Come on Zayn,” Niall moans. “I’ll return the favour, I promise.”

Zayn pushes Niall down onto the couch, takes her time undressing her, pulling off her tight tank top and bike shorts. She was at the gym earlier and her skin is still a little salty from the dried sweat, her hair a little wiry where it’s tucked up in a bun, wispy strands falling down in front of her face and obscuring her blown pupils. She huffs out a breath as Zayn pushes her daggy sports bra over her head and circles her tongue around one of Niall’s nipples that hardens to a nub she can suck on gently, rolling her tongue over it as Niall lets out a gasp, reaching her hands down to push off her own underwear, using her feet to pull them down her own legs.

Zayn laughs when she feels Niall’s hand on her head, pushing her down where she really wants Zayn’s tongue. “I don’t – ” Zayn starts and Niall cuts her off.

“Just start slow,” he says. “Harry always – Harry always started slow.”

Zayn nods and wriggles down the couch to get more comfortable but it’s really hard because the couch isn’t really long enough to fit the both of them, but Niall legs one of her legs fall to the floor to give Zayn more room and hooks the other one of her shoulder.

“Better?” she asks and Zayn answers her with a long lick against her cunt which has Niall clenching the muscles in her thigh where it’s pressing against Zayn’s hair.

Zayn’s torn because she wants to keep making Niall quiver like she does when Zayn sucks her clit into her mouth, but she wants to watch Niall’s face as she comes apart. “Slower,” Niall instructs. “Harry was really slow and – ” she breaks off as Zayn slowly rolls her clit gently between her teeth before licking slowly against her. “Yeah,” Niall breathes. “Just like that, _oh_ , fuck, _Harry_.”

And wow, that sounds pretty weird, hearing Niall moaning Harry’s name the same way she would have when Harry was going down on her. It makes Zayn ache, that this was something Niall got to do with Harry when Zayn never got the chance, but she keeps going, digs her nails into Niall’s thighs when she comes and tries to pretend that Niall’s muscley legs are Harry’s skinny ones, closes her eyes when Niall licks into her and makes out that the blue eyes looking up at her are green.

\---

Niall and Harry got their shit together a few months after they’d released their first single. There’d been this thing hovering between them for over a year and everyone knew that they’d hooked up more than once. It was obvious from the way that they moved together like only two people who’ve seen every part of each other can. It hurt Zayn a lot, but even she could admit that it was really fucking beautiful. Yeah, Niall and Harry were beautiful together.

Niall was the one who decided it was time for all the bullshit to stop and she was happy for everyone else to know exactly how it was going to go, so she announced it in the middle of a concert when someone tweeted in asking what everyone’s idea of the perfect person for them would be.

“Easy,” Niall had said. “Take a look at Harry over there. She’s the perfect girl.” And then she’d taken three steps across the stage and pressed her lips to Harry’s. It had only taken Harry a few seconds before her hands were in Niall’s hair and she was kissing her back.

\---

Niall knocks on Zayn’s door and she knows it’s the two month anniversary of Harry’s death, but it doesn’t mean she wanted Niall to _remember_ and to come to Zayn. Because Harry might have belonged to Niall more than she belonged to anyone else, but Zayn misses her just as much as the next person and sometimes she likes to be alone to grieve. But Niall’s hair is all flat and a little bit greasy and she’s wearing nothing but a huge jumper that used to be Harry’s and it brushes against the tops of thighs and her eyes are all red and blotchy so Zayn sighs and opens the door a little wider to let her come in.

“I have to go down to Holmes Chapel,” Niall says and Zayn raises an eyebrow to ask her why. Niall shrugs. “Anne invited me and in a moment of insecurity, I said yes. Can’t really back out now.” Zayn sighs because no, she can’t back out now.

“You want me to go with you?” she asks and Niall nods like it was what she came for in the first place and she always knew that Zayn was going to offer.

“Thanks,” she says.

They sing along to songs from the nineties in the car and Zayn has never had so much fun belting out the Spice Girls and S Club 7, but Niall is a lot of fun when she wants to be and they almost manage to forget about Harry for the three hours it takes them to get there.

\---

Zayn knows that they can’t keep One Direction going. It’s not that Harry was the lead singer, or the most important member of the band in terms of publicity or anything like that. It’s just that Harry was the air that all of them were breathing and without her, they can’t keep doing what they were doing.

It’s still hard for the four of them to get on live television that’s being broadcast nationally and officially announce that it’s all over. They’re told to say that the band is breaking up, because that’s what it all means, really, but Zayn doesn’t like how it sounds when it rolls off Liam’s tongue. It sounds awful, like the four of them have fallen apart completely after Harry’s death, which isn’t true. The four of them are somewhat bound together by their grief because no one else quite knows what it’s like to spend every waking moment with someone like Harry and then to have her ripped away from you.

Halfway through the interview, Zayn feels Niall’s fingers slip between hers and she squeezes, hard. She needs a rock and she’s assuming Niall does too. She knows the moment will probably be caught on camera, plastered over the internet with questions of Niall moving on already, but it’s not the same, it’s both of them. And they’re doing the opposite of moving on, really, aren’t they?

\---

The thing is, Harry and Niall used to fight a _lot_. A lot more than any couple Zayn had ever known anyway and she thought that maybe it was because they were just that in love. Maybe people who are in love are so perfect for each other that they find the stupidest things to fight about and it hurts the most. Zayn hadn’t ever had anyone in love with her, so she didn’t know, wasn’t sure. Maybe it was just because Harry could be a fucking bitch when she wanted to be and Niall wasn’t one to just sit there and take it.

Either way, Harry used to come to Zayn whenever she fought with Niall, because Zayn and Niall were friends sure, but they always had Harry coming between them. They both wanted her and only one of them could have her and there was this hostility between them that no one seemed to be able to diffuse.

Harry was standing in the doorway with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a box of cookies under her arm. “Niall’s being a cunt,” she said and Zayn sighed, opening the door and letting her in.

“What this time?” Zayn said, hopping back onto the treadmill while Harry fell onto the couch and shoved a cookie into her mouth.

“What?” she said, frowning. “Are my relationship problems just a huge bore to you now?”

Zayn sighed and huffed a strand of hair out of her face as she jogged in time to Harry’s crunching on her food. “Didn’t say that,” she said.

“Implied it,” Harry grumbled and swung her legs off the couch and planted them on the floor, setting her head in her hands. “I don’t know why I do it.”

Zayn didn’t bother slowing down the treadmill as she answered. “Because you love Niall and Niall loves you and as much as I hate to say it, the two of you are made for each other.”

Harry looked up at Zayn, her eyes all sad and sorry looking and Zayn wished she never said anything like that because she always hated making Harry feel bad about the loving someone when she couldn’t help it. “Sometimes I wish I could have fallen for you,” she said and Zayn tried her best to laugh it off.

\---

“You and Niall are having sex, aren’t you?” Liam asks and Zayn nods, spooning more cereal into her mouth and wiping at the milk that tries to dribble down her chin because there’s no point in lying about it really. She doesn’t even know why Liam’s asking when nothing stays a secret in this band and they’ve been sleeping together for about four months now.

“What have you got to say about it then?” Zayn asks because that’s really the only reason Liam might have brought it up.

“Nothing,” Liam says. He sighs. “Well, there’s something. It’s awkward though.”

“Spit it out,” Zayn demands and Liam has always had trouble not being bossed around especially by the girls. There’s something about how breakable they look that makes him bend to their every whim, even Niall.

“I had sex when Niall,” he says and then he blushes so furiously that Zayn can’t help but wince in sympathy for him. She’s not really that upset about it because she doesn’t have any claim over Niall. They’re not dating, not girlfriends and they’re only really together because they’re both desperately missing the same person. Still, it stings a little that Niall can’t get everything she wants from Zayn because Zayn pretty much gives Niall everything, lets her see all of herself and she didn’t actually realise that she wasn’t getting the same thing in return from Niall.

“Okay,” Zayn says, and that’s the last she speaks about it with Liam, takes it straight to Niall instead.

Niall doesn’t seem to think she did anything wrong, brushes it off as a one time thing where she apparently wanted to feel completely full in a way Zayn’s nimble fingers couldn’t make her feel and Zayn accepts that until Niall says, “I just wanted to be manhandled for once. I liked it when Harry was rough in bed sometimes.”

That’s when Zayn takes it personally because _she can be rough in bed_ and so she throws Niall onto the bed and shows her that she doesn’t need to go to Liam if she wants to be pushed around and fucked into the mattress. Zayn manages to do just that despite the fact that she doesn’t have a dick to do all the work for her.

\---

Niall and Harry went away to celebrate their first year anniversary. It wasn’t planned and it fucked everyone right off because the two of them took off in the dead of the night when they were in the middle of recording their second album.

They came back a week later looking sun kissed and beautiful and apparently they’d flitted off to Spain.

They got in a lot of trouble for it, but Zayn wished she had the guts to do something spontaneous like that.

\---

It’s meant to be Niall and Harry’s second anniversary. Niall wakes up crying and Zayn makes her a cup of tea that doesn’t really do much to help the constant stream of tears falling from the blonde’s eyes. Zayn’s always been pretty good at feeling inadequate and now is definitely one of those times when she feels like nothing she does seems to help.

“What do you need me to do?” Zayn asks because Niall is one of her best friends and she hates seeing her this way.

Niall shrugs, wrapping one of Harry’s jumpers around her frame and sniffing a bit. “Nothing,” she says. “I’m going to Harry’s grave today, so you can come with if you want.”

Zayn thinks about it for a moment. It’s a long trip all the way down to Holmes Chapel and she doesn’t think it’ll be as nice as the last time the two of them made the journey. It’ll be quiet and Niall will probably make Zayn drive and will just sit there and look out the window and look through photos on her phone of her and Harry. They’ll get to the graveyard and Niall won’t look at Zayn, will pretend she’s not there and fall on her knees in front of Harry’s headstone and Zayn won’t be allowed to cry as much as Niall because Harry was Niall’s more than she was anyone else’s so no one else can miss her quite as much.

“Zayn?” Niall says. “Are you going to come?”

Zayn looks at Niall and shakes her head. “No.”

\---

“Do you think this is stupid?” Niall asks one afternoon when the two of them are laying in Zayn’s bed. The sun is slicing through a crack in the curtains and making the dust swirl in the air. Zayn likes days like these, when Niall traces words on her skin and she has to guess what they are.

“This game?” Zayn asks and Niall laughs, rolling over to face Zayn and tug on her hair to get her attention properly.

“ _This_ ,” she says and gestures between the two of them and Zayn gets it because it probably is a bit stupid considering they don’t love each other and everything about there relationship is kind of fucked up, but she really can’t bring herself to care about it at all.

“Uh, why?” she asks and she always has to be cautious around Niall because if she says the wrong thing, Niall will just go mental and probably won’t talk to her for a week and Zayn has frown far too used to regular sex to give up on it that easily thank you very much.

“Not that I care that much, but we’re just using each other, aren’t we?” Niall asks and Zayn frowns, tries to laugh but it doesn’t really work.

“Does it matter to you?” Zayn asks. “That we’re using each other?”

“Not if it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Okay,” Zayn says. “Then we keep doing what we’re doing until it does matter.”

“Okay.”

Niall and Zayn are good at doing okay.

\---

Harry and Zayn had always been closer than Niall and Zayn. It was fair enough, given the circumstances, which was why it was fucking weird when Niall showed up on Zayn’s doorstep a year before Harry died, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I don’t know what to fucking do Zayn, fuck,” she’d said, running her hands through her hair and she hadn’t been able to speak through her tears until Zayn had shoved her into the shower and then into some warm clothes before sitting her down on the couch and handing her a cuppa.

“Harry and I broke up,” she’d said and Zayn had felt strangely empty. She’d thought she’d have felt a flare of hope, or something vaguely positive. But she realised then that if Harry and Niall couldn’t survive together, what hope did the rest of the world have at finding a love that lasted?

They were back together within a week and Zayn could honestly tell Louis that she was relieved, despite the quirk in his eyebrow that told her he didn’t believe her.

\---

Zayn’s not stupid and she knows what her and Niall are doing isn’t exactly normal, but she doesn’t think either of the boys are going to call them out on it, until Louis. And it’s always Louis, isn’t it? He’s the one who’ll have the ice cream when she needs a good cry, but he’s also the one to make her cry half the time with how brutally honest he is with her. She appreciates it though, needs it.

“We need to talk,” Louis says and Zayn nods, fiddling with the tea cup that she emptied a few minutes ago.

“Sure Lou, what about?”

“Niall. And Harry I guess,” he says and Zayn knows it’s going to be one of those rare moments where Louis is serious and scares the shit out of her.

“Uh, yeah, what about Niall and Harry?” Zayn asks and tries to ignore the way she still hiccups over Harry’s name like she can’t say it without getting some sort of ridiculous emotion welling up inside of her.

“You know that – ”

“I know it’s stupid,” Zayn says.

Louis raises his eyebrows. “I wasn’t going to say that,” he says and Zayn cringes because she hates it when she jumps the gun. “I get it, the comfort thing. It’s been hard on everyone and we all cope in different ways. It’s just – ” He breaks off and sighs. “You know it’s not going to bring her back, right Zayn? You know that prentending Niall is Harry isn’t going to make it true?”

Zayn smiles a tiny smile. “I know.”

\---

Zayn always hated being the only one with a single room when they were touring. Louis and Liam shared because they liked to have time together as ‘the lads’ of the group and Niall and Harry roomed together for obvious reasons.

Usually management made it a bit easier on Zayn by popping her on a separate floor so that she didn’t have the constant reminder that she was the one heading back to her room alone, but sometimes it just didn’t work out and she ended up on the same floor and in one uncomfortable instance, right next door to Harry and Niall’s room.

The two of them liked the hotels because it meant that they could spread themselves out on the kind sized bed and fuck lazily for hours. And they were never exactly quiet about it.

\---

Zayn isn’t sure why she’s stepping off a plane onto Irish soil, Niall’s hand in hers as they make their way through the terminal. Niall didn’t make a big deal out of it when she asked, as though asking Zayn back to her childhood home was not a big deal at all.

“You want gum?” Zayn asks when they stop in the news agent and pushes her sunglasses up her nose when she sees a few teenagers looking in their direction. They may have been broken up for a while, but they were really famous when they were together and they still get old fans stopping them on the street to ask for their autograph.

“Nah,” Niall says, flicking through a magazine that she’ll probably read on the cab ride all the way out to Mullingar. “You okay?” she asks, noticing Zayn is getting a bit tetchy at the approaching teenagers.

“Bugger off,” Zayn says with a smile, cuddling into Niall’s side as she pays for the gum and magazine and ushers Niall into the nearest cab to avoid the fans.

Niall’s dad pull’s Zayn into a warm hug as soon as she steps through the door, holds her back from his body by her shoulders and runs his eyes over her face. “You’re very pretty,” he says with a smile and Zayn blushes.

Niall groans and grabs Zayn by the wrist and pulls her into the house. “Shut up Dad,” she groans and he chuckles.

“You two ladies want a cuppa?” he asks and Niall shrugs, flopping down onto the couch and pulling Zayn down to slot under her arm. Zayn feels small there and cuddles into Niall’s side, fingers curling around the blonde’s hip.

“You know,” Niall’s dad says, sitting down opposite them. “It’s been a long time since Niall brought a girl home for me to meet.”

“Dad,” Niall warns and Zayn doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want what she knows Bobby is about to say.

“The last girl Niall brought home was Harry.”

\---

Zayn is mad because Niall promised dinner and a fuck and bailed on it without letting Zayn know. It gets to nine and the takeout menus spread out around Zayn have all been folded into intricate origami shapes that she always tried to teach Harry, but the younger girl had never had the patience that Zayn did for that kind of thing. Niall was meant to be at Zayn’s two hours ago and Zayn is full of nervous energy that comes from tapping her foot on the floor in agitation.

So she gets in a cab.

“Closest bar,” she says quickly and grins when the cab driver takes off without a word. Zayn likes drinking. She likes the bitter burn of the amber liquids as they slide down her throat. So she orders five shots as soon as she steps in the door and carries them on a tray towards a booth at the back of the bar. It’s quiet. The music isn’t loud enough for the bar to be pumping, but after an hour of slamming back scotch chased with nothing but water, the dance floor is filled with writhing bodies.

Zayn likes to think her body language portrays that she doesn’t want to be approached, but much to her chagrin, a few hopefuls still attempt to chat her up, sliding into the booth next to her or asking her to dance. She manages to awkwardly turn down any of the males who make an advance on her, politely explaining that she prefers pussy. It’s the girls she has trouble turning down. She wonders why she even wants to. It would be better if she could forget about Niall completely, have some other girl licking into her to make her forget the feeling of Niall’s hot breath between her thighs. The girls here are pretty too, sidling up to her and batting their eyelashes her way, but they’re not beautiful and dangerous like Harry, nor are they boyish and brave like Niall. And apparently those are the things Zayn goes for.

It reaches a point where Zayn is half lying on the table as she attempts to sip at the vodka and coke she’s switched to and the bartender approaches her. “Who can I call for you, love?” he asks and he sounds nice, not sleazy, so Zayn pulls her phone out of her pocket and tells him to call Louis.

Louis’ arm is solid around her waist as he guides her out of the car and back towards the apartment complex. Zayn sometimes wonders how hard it is for him to wake up to Harry’s empty room in their flat and considers asking him to come live with her in her flat, but Louis and Zayn only really work together in small doses.

“What are you doing Zayn?” he asks as he pulls his keys out of his pocket, propping her up against the wall and she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. It’s not like there’s any point to her drinking until she can barely stand, barely coordinate her limbs enough to hold onto Louis as he guides her through the door and into his room. The spare room is Harry’s room and it’s not fair to put Zayn in there. They both know that.

“Help,” Zayn says in a small voice, lifting her arms above her head and Louis sighs tiredly, helping her wriggle out of her dress. He sits down on the bed next to her and pulls her into a one armed hug.

“I’m worried about you Zayn,” he says softly and she rolls her eyes.

“Don’t be,” she says. “Please.” And then she swings a leg over his hips, leaning in to press their lips together. Her teeth pull at his bottom lip when he doesn’t kiss back and she whines in the back of her throat. Because Louis is supposed to make her feel better, always, supposed to give her what she wants. And she wants him, needs him to make her feel like she’s wanted by someone. Because Harry didn’t want her and Niall doesn’t really want her in the way she wanted Harry. And she just wants someone to need her.

“Zayn,” Louis says firmly, pushing her back a little and shaking his head at her. “Not tonight, okay babe?” And his eyes are so full of worry that Zayn can’t actually bear to do anything other than slide off his lap with a whimper as her bottom lip trembles.

She rolls over onto Louis’ side of the bed and he pulls the blanket up around her shoulders, curling up behind her and tucking his knees in against hers. “Love you, Lou,” she says quietly and he presses a soft kiss to junction of her neck and shoulder blade.

“I love you too.”

In the morning, Zayn slides her arms around Louis’ waist when she finds him cooking breakfast for the two of them in the kitchen.

“Has anyone ever told you, the way to a man’s heart is through wearing his t shirts and nothing else?” Louis says and Zayn laughs.

“Lucky I’m not trying to win my way into any man’s heart then,” she says, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt that she slipped on when she hopped out of bed and Louis grins.

“Not even into my pants?” Louis teases and Zayn slaps him on the arm because Louis is such a loser and she loves him so much when he acts like a complete idiot because it’s _just what she needs_. 

“Even less so,” Zayn says and wrinkles her nose and Louis dishes some bacon onto a plate for Zayn, but holds the eggs because he knows he hates the texture when they’re scrambled but he doesn’t know how to make them any other way.

“Not the message you were giving me last night,” he says with a waggle of his eyebrows and Zayn rolls her eyes, reaching across to pinch his cheek.

“Sorry to disappoint Tommo.” She sighs. “But you know that was just – ”

“Angry at Niall kissing?” Louis asks and Zayn grimaces. “It’s okay babe, I get it.”

“We’re not going to be like…” Zayn breaks off and takes a bite of her bacon because she’s not really that worried, “weird right?”

Louis shakes his head with a small smile because he’s used to Zayn and how she doesn’t really get people. Because Zayn’s always been pretty shit at interaction. “We’re good love,” he says and she nods, hoeing into her bacon again while Louis chuckles and tells her to let herself out when he goes to shower.

\---

Zayn ended up kissing Harry three weeks before she died. Harry was sad because she and Niall had been fighting again, which just _happened_ with two people who had big personalities like they did. And she shacked up at Zayn’s flat for the night.

It happened a lot, Harry staying at Zayn’s when she was fighting with Niall. Zayn figured it was because it was pretty obvious that Zayn was in love with Harry and Harry knew she could never say no to her when she knocked on her door with her makeup all smudged and her worn converses hanging from her hang like she’d fled the flat without having a chance to put them on. Sometimes she was still in her pyjamas and sometimes she was in a pair of ripped and rolled up jeans.

Harry never liked to talk about it, liked to pretend that there was nothing actually wrong, that she was totally fine and everything with Niall was completely dandy. So Zayn let her pretend, pulling her onto the couch and chucking a movie into the DVD player and wrapping an arm around her as she opened a bottle of wine for the two of them to share. Zayn usually liked white win, but Harry liked red, so she obliged. Harry was the one who needed to forget.

They were on their second bottle of wine when Harry leant towards her and lifted her lips to Zayn’s, threading her long fingers through Zayn’s thick, dark hair. They felt electric when they scratched against her scalp as Harry’s tongue slipped between her teeth. It was soft and slow and first and Zayn didn’t really know how to react, her own hands coming up to clutch at Harry’s wrists as she tried to decide between pushing her off, or pulling her closer.

Zayn could barely bring herself to breathe when Harry gently slid onto her lap, legs wrapped around her waist and hands travelling from her hair to push her shirt up her sides. And then she started to kiss back and Harry pulled away with a sigh like she was waiting for Zayn to respond before she realised she was done, and that was just cruel, really, wasn’t it. Zayn couldn’t find it in herself to stay mad at the beautiful girl sitting on her lap whose ironically sloganed (is that a word?) t shirt had slipped off one of her shoulders. Zayn would have liked to have sucked a mark onto that shoulder.

“You’re sweet Zayn,” she’d said and Zayn had smiled. “But you know I’m in love with Niall, right?”

Zayn had nodded and leant back against the couch as Harry continued to nip gently at the skin of her neck. “Stop, Harry,” she said and pushed gently at Harry’s shoulders before threading her fingers through the wiry curls that she’d been growing out.

Harry nodded sadly and slid off Zayn’s lap, tipping the last of the wine down her throat before standing up. “I think I’m just going to go to bed,” she said, stumbling a little as she made her way across the room to the stairs. Harry was a fucking beautiful disaster.

\---

Zayn realises she’s got actual honest-to-God feelings for Niall a few days before her birthday. It’s bloody freezing and Niall has stolen all the blankets and Zayn has to curl up as close to her as she possibly can to get any warmth at all. Niall rolls into her, wrapping an arm around her waist and Zayn gets this feeling in her stomach like it’s just fallen out of her body and she knows she’s a goner.

“Shit,” she whispers and Niall groans.

“Nice way to wake up,” he mumbles into Zayn’s neck and Zayn can’t decide if it’s a jab at Zayn’s swearing or a genuine expression of happiness over waking up in Zayn’s arms. She hopes it’s the latter and yeah, okay, when did she start hoping things like that?

“I can think of better ways,” Zayn says and her voice is all cracked from sleep and makes Niall look up at her with her eyes glinting.

“Yeah?” she asks and Zayn smiles, running a hand through Niall’s hair, which is always tangled after sleeping. Zayn doesn’t know how the hell she puts up with it.

“You offering?” she teases and Niall answers with a grin and hand dipping into the cotton shorts Zayn wears to bed when she and Niall haven’t been fucking the night before.

“That’s a ‘yes’ in case you hadn’t figured it out,” Niall says before she’s wriggling down the bed, shoving Zayn’s shorts down her legs as she goes. Zayn kicks the covers off, wants to see Niall’s head between her legs, to know it’s _Niall_ because she’s not pretending it’s Harry anymore.

Niall doesn’t waste any time, licks a line straight up Zayn’s cunt because she know Zayn likes that, likes the long languid strokes of Niall’s tongue. Zayn lifts her hips off the bed a little, pushing herself towards Niall’s mouth and she can feel her smile against her, but she guesses its more of a smirk because Niall suddenly speeds up the movement of her tongue, finally letting her lips brush against Zayn’s clit before the pressure is removed completely and Zayn looks down to see Niall grinning up at her.

Zayn almost comes when Niall’s tongue flicks teasingly against her clit, her eyes dark as she watches Zayn’s face while she lets out a moan, her legs already quivering a little. Niall takes them and slings them over her shoulders. She’s never had a problem manhandling Zayn and it’s okay. It’s hot.

“So easy to make you fall apart,” Niall says with a smile, dropping her head down to replace her teasing tongue with her lips and _sucks_ , slipping two fingers into Zayn at the same time and pressing hard. And Zayn falls, her thighs clenching around Niall’s face.

Niall laps at her afterwards, making Zayn cry out because she’s so sensitive and Niall finally takes pity on her and scrambles back up the bed to kiss Zayn happily.

“My turn?” Niall asks, straddling Zayn’s lap and leaning down to kiss her again.

Zayn can taste herself on Niall’s lips as she kisses her and Zayn’s still all jittery in the aftermath of her orgasm, a line of goosebumps along her arms, but Niall is still desperate, rutting against Zayn’s hip in a way that’s not so subtle.

Zayn slides her fingers up Niall’s vest, pushes it over her head and rolls them over so that she’s straddling Niall, brushing her tongue over Niall’s nipple before kissing her again. Zayn sucks on Niall’s bottom lip, flicking her thumb across her nipple at the same time and Niall whimpers into her mouth, whispers, “Harry, Harry please.”

Zayn stills for a minute, heart beating a steady thump in her chest that’s a little faster than usual. Niall seems to notice her pause and sits up on her elbows, lifting a hand to brush Zayn’s hair out of her face.

“You okay?” she asks and Zayn laughs, nodding. She’s not sure if Niall just doesn’t realise that she’s said Harry’s name or whether she just doesn’t care. Either way, it fucking hurts more than Zayn thought it would.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, kissing Niall again. “Sorry, I just…zoned out for a second there.”

Zayn returns her mouth to Niall’s body, sucking a bruise onto her throat as she parts Niall’s legs with a hand on the inside of each of Niall’s thighs. Her skin is salty as Zayn licks down her breastbone. She feels a little pang right in her chest when Niall’s hands tangle in her hair and she wishes the blonde could realise Zayn’s upset, wishes Niall would care and maybe more than a friend is supposed to. It’s okay though. Zayn’s used to not being loved in return.


End file.
